Taken together, the different articles in these various posts indicate that the gun was locked; it was placed in a way that was not accessible by the children; both the father and the great-uncle, the Rev. John Hilton, believed that if the gun had been accessible children’s lives would have been saved; and these moves were done because of fear of the California state law.

And for the third time he has neither supported nor admitted as false this claim from his new book:

“the sensible girl ran for where the family guns were stored. But they were locked up tight.”

This is not some minor quibble. Lott’s account makes it sound like the only thing stopping her from using her parents’ gun was that it was locked up. In fact, she locked herself in her bedroom and tried calling 911. The killer banged on her door. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that the gun was unlocked and she had come out the door and tried to get the gun, there would have been a fair chance that she would have been pitchforked to death instead of climbing out her window and getting help (which is what actually occurred).

Lott’s false version of the story avoids this problem by having her get to where the guns are stored and being stymied by the gun lock.